News Corporation has announced that its education technology division, headed by Joel Klein, a former New York City schools chancellor, will introduce new products this fall under the brand name Amplify.

One large segment of New York City remains segregated, and that is in the city’s schools. As the latest in a New York Times series, “A System Divided,” illustrated on Sunday, black children are often taught in schools that are disproportionately black, by teachers who are likely to be white. The article takes a close-up look at one such school, the Explore Charter School in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, and is accompanied by a graphic presentation of the citywide issue.

A former deputy schools chancellor writes: ‘For the first time in nearly two decades, the next mayor will likely be a Democrat. As a life-long registered Democrat, I look forward to that prospect. However, there are vultures circling this contest who would once again reduce our schools to the patronage mills of yesteryear, when no one was accountable for what happened to our kids.’

The city wanted to fire a Washington Heights music teacher, Michael Dalton, for inappropriately holding three third-grade boys in his lap, The Times reports. But then Mr. Dalton, 48, presented a novel — and successful — defense: a photo of Joel I. Klein, the schools chancellor at the time, who also appeared to have children sitting in his lap. An arbitrator returned him to the classroom.

StudentsFirstNY, the new political group formed by leaders of the education reform movement like Joel I. Klein and Michelle Rhee, officially announced its arrival on Wednesday morning.

To counter the influence of the teachers’ union, powerful forces like Joel I. Klein, Michelle Rhee, Eva S. Moskowitz, Edward I. Koch and Geoffrey Canada, backed by a number of venture capitalists and hedge fund managers, have formed a group called StudentsFirstNY, a spinoff of the national group that Ms. Rhee, the former Washington schools chancellor, had formed to press for changes in how schools are run, The Times reports today.

Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott has expressed reluctance about releasing thousands of individual teacher ratings to the public, striking a different tone if not a different outcome from that of his predecessor, Joel I. Klein, who paved the way for their release.

UPDATED | After a long legal battle and amid much anguish by teachers and other educators, the city Department of Education released individual performance rankings of 18,000 New York City public school teachers to the public on Friday. The rankings are now available on SchoolBook, listed by school.

In the news on Thursday, a question: Is the city beginning to hold charter schools to a higher standard? The closing of Peninsula Preparatory Academy Charter School in Far Rockaway, Queens, has some thinking the answer is yes, writes Anna M. Phillips in The New York Times on Thursday. Also, answer our query: What is the state of your school?

A teacher who taught at the Bronx Lab School, a jewel in former Chancellor Joel I. Klein’s small school movement, says his views on what works and what does not have changed over the years. Now, he says, he strives for good and sustainable, rather than great and unique.